


Is the Sky Falling, Or Is It Just Me?

by Dorinda



Category: Invisible Man (TV 2000)
Genre: Carrying, Cave-In, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kissing, M/M, Rescue, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 16:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorinda/pseuds/Dorinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby and Darien were literally underground, chasing a wily Flemish chemist (say that five times fast). And then came the cave-in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is the Sky Falling, Or Is It Just Me?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emma_Oz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_Oz/gifts).



"Fawkes!"

Bobby knew instantly that he shouldn't have tried to shout. Falling dust still filled the air in a gritty cloud, and shouting just let it into his mouth and down his throat. He coughed, pulling his jacket up across his mouth to breathe through.

A few remaining loose rocks finished their final slide, clattering against each other. It sounded familiar. In fact, it all felt a little too familiar, like a movie or something. Lots of things that had happened to Bobby Hobbes in his day had been really different from the movies, sometimes surprisingly different--serving in the Corps, for one thing, and getting shot, and killing somebody. And having sex, yeah, that one...the movies hadn't been a big help there. But this particular deal, earthquake and cave-in, it reminded him of five different action movies right off the bat. 

He waved at the settling dust, golden in the few thin shafts of light slanting down from the ceiling. Through the jacket, he yelled again: "Fawkes!" He wished he knew exactly where Fawkes had been right before the quake, to zero in on his last known location, but all he knew was that Fawkes had been off in the dark sneaking up on the bad guys for a little tag-and-run. He'd been screwing the hell around in See-Through-Ville, taking a good long time to do the job, probably because it was fun. Stupid jerkface.

" _Fawkes!_ "

He followed the right-hand tunnel wall as far as he could, where it narrowed and turned the corner toward the bad guys' underground hideout. Why they couldn't be in a high-rise like any self-respecting evil geniuses, Bobby had no idea, and it kind of pissed him off.

At the corner, the passage was cluttered with tall heaps of dirt and scree, but at least it wasn't blocked as solid as the way they'd come in. He could climb up and through, follow in Fawkes' footsteps, find him. And the bad guys had better hope Bobby didn't find them first, because he'd kind of had it with this whole thing. 

He was looking at the steep side of the pile, deciding where to scramble up, when he noticed something right up close to the wall. Definitely not rocks or dirt. In fact, it was kind of...purple. 

_No, man, they're burgundy,_ Fawkes had said, sliding one hand into his pocket, turning to display his other hip and his long, long leg. _Some people might say magenta, but I definitely say burgundy. Nice, huh?_

"Purple," Bobby said, dropping hard to his knees; a pointy rock jabbed him right under the kneecap and sent a bolt of pain up the nerve. He didn't pay any attention. "Reddish purple, _maybe_." He started scraping at the rubble with both hands, digging his fingers in hard.

Under a few sparse surface stones, it was soft here, dirt and some clumps of moss and who knew what. He cleared off the purple ( _burgundy_ ) pantsleg quickly and worked his way along--the wrong way first, finding a sock and a bony ankle, then reversing and working his way along a mile of leg, hip, a T-shirt come untucked over a lean, golden stomach that was breathing serenely in and out.

Breathing. In and out. Bobby scrubbed the back of his dusty arm over his dusty face, which didn't do any good for either one. "Fawkes, come on." Up the T-shirt to an open leather jacket, filled with dirt, expanse of chest, shoulders, arms flung upward, arched throat, and--

He wiped his hands carefully across Fawkes's face, then used just the fingertips to clear the dirt from his eyelids. "Hey. I'd call you Sleeping Beauty, but I wouldn't want you to get a swelled head, right?"

He probed Fawkes's hair--which had picked up a truly stunning amount of soil, kid's head was gonna weigh an extra ten pounds easy--and felt a little better as he worked his way over and around. Forehead okay, fragile temples okay thank you God, crown, around to the back...

"Oww!" Fawkes said, as Bobby's fingers found the swelling spot near the base of his skull. "Watch it, man! I'm using that!"

"Wouldn't know it from here," Bobby said, sitting back on his heels. "What're you doing under all this crap, hibernating?"

"Uh." Fawkes blinked up at the ceiling through his mask of dirt, spitting and coughing. "I was... Lemme see. Last I remember, I was being all invisible and stuff..."

"Like ya do," Bobby said amiably, pulling out his phone.

"Just like I do. And I was...uh..." He craned his head up, groaning, and looked at his hands. "Was I carrying a tracking bug?"

"You were," Bobby said sternly. Dammit--no signal at all. "And taking a damn long time to plant it, too."

"Hm." Fawkes flexed his hands and let his head sink back down. "Ow. Uh--yeah, wait, okay, I had the bug, invisible blah blah, and I had just dropped it off in Gerollen-- Gerdonnen... the bad guy's stuff and was coming back here." He waited a second, then continued: "Coming back here. For maybe a little praise from my partner?"

"Where'd you put it?"

"Hey, good job, there, bro, nice work," Fawkes said to the ceiling.

"Not in his pocket, right?"

"No way, not our Man Of A Thousand Bad Disguises. I put it in his briefcase, you know how much he loves that thing."

Bobby considered. "What, the man-bag?"

"If by that you mean soft-sided cross-body satchel briefcase like Darien might be able to use for his birthday..."

"By that I mean the murse." Bobby tucked the phone away and patted him on the leg. "Good job, there, bro."

"Ow," Fawkes said again. "Okay, that end's not all that much better than the head."

"What is it, the knee?" Bobby leaned in and probed a little more firmly.

" _Yes_ , yes, okay, thanks, ow, it is apparently the knee." 

"You're a mess," Bobby said, resting his hand gently on Fawkes's shin. "C'mere, let's get you up."

He leaned in and slid his shoulder under one of Fawkes's arms, easing him to a sitting position and then awkwardly to his feet. Fawkes leaned on him heavily, head hanging, dirt crumbling down from his hair. It was a familiar weight, and Bobby had no trouble slipping his arm around Fawkes's waist and half-carrying him (or maybe more, maybe like three-quarters) to the side of the tunnel that had the easiest climb. 

"Ready?"

Fawkes let out a long breath. "Is there an answer to that question? I mean, I'm obviously not, right? But we're going anyway."

"Fraid so." Bobby hoisted Fawkes more firmly against his side. "Up and over, my friend."

He hauled Fawkes a few precarious steps up the side of the dirtpile. Fawkes clung to him, wobbling. "Aw, man, do we have to? Don't they say, you know, stay where you are and wait for the Saint Bernards?"

"You want to wait for _Eberts_ \--" Bobby muscled them up a little further-- "to put in a Saint Bernard supply request form?" 

"Mannnnn." 

Fawkes did his best to help climb with his good leg, but before getting to the top of the pile they'd slipped back down a few times, the dirt and scree loose and uncertain underfoot. At the top, Bobby let him go and scrambled over by himself, then reached back to grab Fawkes's wrists and pull, helping him slither over the peak of the mound and start down the other side. It was kind of like delivering the world's longest baby, especially if you included all the whining. Bobby didn't mind admitting to himself that he found Fawkes's whining reassuring, though...that's how you knew he was conscious.

He helped Fawkes get down to the bottom, then propped him there against the dirt, his leg stretched out. There was still some light filtering down over here, and swirls of dust in the air showed a fresh breeze, though it wasn't entirely clear from where. "So, not to be a noodge or anything," Fawkes said, "but would you mind telling me why the hell we had to do that?"

"You wanna get out, don't you?" Bobby felt in his pocket and retrieved the bug-tracker.

"Oh, I don't know." Fawkes let his head rest back against the dirtpile, wincing, and closed his eyes. "I bet there are tourists who pay top dollar for this kind of thing."

Bobby flipped the on switch and waited for the little tracker lights to settle down and do their thing. He kept glancing over at Fawkes, who looked pale under the streaks of dirt. "Hey. You're not going to sleep, right?"

"Wrong," Fawkes said, his voice hazy. 

"No, I mean, don't you go to sleep, Fawkes, I'm serious here. I'm no Keeper or nothing, but that lump on your head might mean a concussion."

"And if watching every episode of _Emergency!_ has taught you anything..." Fawkes murmured, but he opened his eyes.

"That was a good show," Bobby insisted. 

"Randolph Mantooth," Fawkes said. "Sure." Then, seemingly just to say it: "Mannnnntooooooooooth."

The tracker beeped. "We got a fix on the bug," Bobby said. 

Fawkes managed a weak little laugh. "The Fat Man really does owe you a great big raise, if you're still on the job even when we're at the bottom of a bottomless pit."

"Yes he does," Bobby said firmly, "but not for this." He brandished the tracker. "Subject is moving, away and up. And if he can do it..."

"You sure he didn't just get swallowed by a sandworm?"

"A what?" Bobby went back to Fawkes and crouched down next to him.

"Nothing." Fawkes put his arm over Bobby's shoulders and let himself be hauled upright again. They made their way along the tunnel, avoiding larger clumps of debris.

They came to an intersection; Bobby looked more closely at the tracker, then at the branching tunnels ahead. "Huh."

"What," Fawkes said sluggishly. Even his good leg had been dragging for the last couple minutes.

"I think here we gotta turn left."

"Okay then." Fawkes gestured floppily with his free arm. "Mush!"

"Fawkes," Bobby said, peering up at him. "Your eyes open?"

"...maybe."

"Uh huh. Well, open 'em." 

A few seconds went by, and then Fawkes muttered: "Aw. Crap."

"Yeah, there we go, now they're open." Bobby helped him to the lefthand wall and lowered him down, then put the tracker in his lap. "Lemme get this stuff out of the way."

The left tunnel wasn't as full of dirt as the one they'd come from, so at least they wouldn't have to climb, but the only passage showing through the debris was pretty damn narrow. It would need some clearing out, and then some crawling, which he figured Fawkes wasn't looking forward to. He sighed, and set to work.

After a couple minutes of careful scraping and dirt removal, he glanced suspiciously over his shoulder. "Fawkes?"

"Hm."

"Awake?"

"Eh."

"You better get yourself awake for reals, pal, before I gotta do something drastic."

"Okay, okay. I'm awake for reals."

Bobby pushed a heap of dirt back from the opening he was widening out. "Just stay that way."

"Why don't you tell me a story?"

"What," Bobby said, settling back on his heels and stripping off his sport coat. "Watching me do all the work's not entertaining enough for you?" He carried the jacket back to Fawkes, wadding it up. "Here, put this someplace useful."

Fawkes tucked it gingerly behind his head. "Gotta protect the government equipment, right."

There was a touch of familiar bitterness in his tone; Bobby hadn't heard it in a while, maybe because of the counteragent-free honeymoon. But it was there now, just an echo. "Listen, your quicksilver deal is about the last thing on my mind right now. Unless it's suddenly developed the magic ability to shovel."

"Guess not." Fawkes smiled faintly, nestling his head into Bobby's jacket. "I suppose Kevin wasn't planning for cave-ins."

Bobby bent down and looked into one of Fawkes's eyes, then the other, trying to compare the pupils. They seemed the same size, to him, though he wasn't sure if they were too dilated or what--it was dim in here, so of course his big puppy eyes would be at their biggest-puppyish. Puppyest. Something.

"What?" Fawkes asked, his voice a sleepy purr.

"What do you mean, what." Bobby turned abruptly and went back to his excavation.

Fawkes was quiet for a minute, but before Bobby could remind him to stay awake, he said, "Seriously, Bobby, tell me a story."

"About what?" Bobby got his fingernails under a big chunk of rock. 

"Well, you always said your life was worth half-a-dozen best-sellers."

"A dozen," Bobby corrected, ferreting the rock out and heaving it off to the side. "Reading public don't know what they're missing."

"Then give me a sneak preview."

Bobby wriggled forward, scraping away dirt with both arms, like slow-mo swimming. "Whadda you even need the story of my life for? You know it already!"

"Well," Fawkes said, his voice sounding tired and thoughtful, "it's true that I'd be the first guy to guess 'Bobby Hobbes' on _What's My Line._ "

"Was that the one where they sent people off into the soundproof booth?"

"Nah, man, _What's My Line_ had blindfolds. You're thinking of _The Newlywed Game._ " 

Bobby ducked as a cloud of dust sifted down from the wall over his head and shoulders.

"We'd'a kicked butt on that show," Fawkes added.

Bobby sneezed.

"Gesundheit," Fawkes said politely. "So answer me something, wouldja?"

"Yeah, all right," Bobby said. "Truth or dare or whatever, as long as it keeps you awake." 

"You told me something once about your shrinks."

"What, you want a recommendation?" Bobby could see the light, literally; he had a nice little passage here to get them into the next open space. He backtracked, retrieved his jacket and slipped it on, then put the tracker back in his pocket. He crouched next to Fawkes, who obediently lifted his arm to let Bobby wedge himself underneath and hoist away.

"Ecch." Fawkes held on tight as Bobby led him to the corridor. "Am I even gonna fit in there? We're not all as--"

"Appropriately sized," Bobby said, "and yes, I think I know how much room you take up by now, thank you."

"Not that I'd criticize your lovely work."

"Yeah, that'll be the day." Bobby manhandled his armful of Fawkes up against the wall. "It's gotta be single-file, so you're gonna have to kind of..." He turned his back to Fawkes and looked back over his shoulder.

Even dirty, disheveled, and clearly hurting, Fawkes gave a really good stinkeye. "...piggyback?" he said.

"Well, c'mon, Fawkes, it's not like the whole pig. Just--" Bobby shrugged his shoulders up and down. "Lean in."

"A half double-pike reverse pig," Fawkes said, and draped his warm, dusty weight over Bobby's back and shoulders. His arms crossed along Bobby's collarbones, and a resigned breath blew into Bobby's ear. "Let's run this rollercoaster."

Bobby started carefully through the narrow corridor, Fawkes helping with his good leg. 

"So Hobbes," he said, from what almost sounded like right inside Bobby's head. "Your shrinks."

"What about 'em?" Bobby bent his knees to get them under a jagged rock protruding from the tunnel wall.

"You told me once that you fell in love with them."

"Every single one," Bobby said, and laughed. "Every married one, too. Up to and including the latest one, who's doing a real good job even when I can hardly tell her anything."

They reached the end of the bit with any kind of height, and were now faced with what looked to Bobby like a pretty short but really tight crawl. He grasped Fawkes's forearms. "Let's sit down a second."

It wasn't so much lowering Fawkes down this time as folding him, like a big billowy sweatshirt of a person. Bobby sat next to him and checked the tracker. Still moving away and up--slowly, though not as slow as his pursuers. That was okay...Bobby had other things on his mind than that putz, anyway.

"Eyes open," he said firmly.

Fawkes opened his eyes. "Come on, I was blinking that time."

"For like a minute."

"It was not a minute," Fawkes said. "Maybe half a minute. Maybe!"

"Half a minute is too many minutes."

Fawkes sighed. "If somebody were telling me a story, like I asked..."

"My first shrink, I was like twelve," Bobby said. "Not that I had any of my, uh," he waved a hand around his head, "problems then. It was just a thing. My folks wanted to make sure I-- Hey, not a bedtime story, all right?"

"Yeah, agreed, no bedtime here," Fawkes said, though he was still leaning his shoulder against Bobby's like it was the only thing keeping him vaguely upright.

"All right then." Bobby sniffed. "Anyway. Fell in love with Dr. Rosen, learned a few things about life, made me the man I am today. So there's that."

Fawkes looked like a guy who thinks he might have just sat down on his snazzy new sunglasses. "Why they haven't hired you as the new host of Reading Rainbow I'll never know."

"Bobby Hobbes lives a life of action," Bobby said, rolling to his knees. "Not narration." Fawkes opened his mouth, definitely to complain. "Save your energy, Bambi, we got some crawling to do first."

"Bambi ended up a really good-looking guy," Fawkes said, while Bobby helped him move over in front of the low entrance to the next bit of tunnel. "The chest, and the antlers and all. If you'd ever watched it past when his mom got killed, you'd remember that."

"Hey," Bobby said hastily. "You ever think maybe she doesn't? We never see it."

"You think she went to the deer hospital?"

"Well, I mean, there are a lotta options." Bobby went down on his belly for a military low-crawl. "Grab my ankle, let's go."

Fawkes grabbed on, and Bobby elbowed his way forward into the tunnel. Fawkes was obviously having a lot of trouble on the side with the injured knee, leveraging himself ahead on that side only with difficulty by using Bobby's leg as a hand-hold. There was no space down here for talking--plenty of air, though, Bobby reminded himself, _plenty_ , no problem--and it got really quiet. He could hear Fawkes breathing, hear the effort he was putting in as he half-dragged himself in Bobby's careful wake. _Almost there_ , Bobby kept wanting to say to him, even when they had just gotten started and of course they weren't almost there. So he just made sure his pace was slow and smooth, made double sure not to pull his ankle out of Fawkes's grip, and kept his frickin head down the way he'd learned.

When he finally slithered out into the next open area, it felt as big as all outdoors. All the air in the world, comparatively. "Okay--" he said, and before he could give any instructions, Fawkes's hand fell away from his ankle. He crabbed the rest of the way forward and turned quick to catch hold of Fawkes and get him out.

"Sorry I ain't got any water." 

Fawkes was so covered in dirt by now that as he sat slumped against the tunnel wall he almost looked like part of it, an outcropping of dirt and rock with very tired eyes. 

"No prob," Fawkes said, and smiled faintly. "It'd only go down mud." 

Bobby didn't like that smile. He didn't like the 'no prob,' either, instead of maybe a little loud wondering about how the Agency expected them to work in these conditions, or dark predictions about their holiday bonus this year being a company thermos. Still no luck with the phone; he dug out the tracker and checked it.

"We oughta hurry, huh?" 

"Nah." Bobby doublechecked his vectors and then tucked it away. "We better not catch up to him, it'd ruin all our hard work getting that bug planted."

" _Our_ hard work," Fawkes muttered.

Bobby felt a little better. "Hey, you wanna find his hideout or not?"

"Somehow," Fawkes said, and took a breath, "I don't think we'll be rolling up any supervillain lairs today."

"Big deal," Bobby said. "We did our thing. The Fat Man can send in a strike team without us."

"Without Bobby Hobbes? Making with the hand signals?" Fawkes flapped a half-assed version of the column-formation signal.

"Yeah, well," Bobby scoffed, "you just wish you had the hands for it."

Fawkes sat there against his shoulder, his head drooping forward. It was quiet again, and a minute went by like an hour. 

"My first real shrink was in the Marines," Bobby said at last. "I was kinda surprised, I mean, like--jarheads don't have problems like that, right? Or they don't talk about 'em." He grinned. "Maybe that's why they hired Dr. McCarthy, _everybody_ wanted to tell her all their dirty little secrets."

Fawkes stirred. "Nice, huh?"

"Oh yeah."

"Fell in love."

"Ohhhh yeah." Bobby whistled. "That was a rough one, lemme tell ya. First real shrink, I'm all grown up...what do I know, right?"

"What do you know about what?"

Bobby climbed to his feet and stretched, easing his back. "Transference, pal. Bane of the psychiatric life. Ready?" He started to lean down.

"Gimme a sec." Fawkes wrapped his arms around himself. "Transference, that's where you--"

"Fall in love with your shrink. Or other stuff, you know, like, mommy, daddy, blah blah."

"Sounds like you know a lot about it."

"Some people are prone to transference," Bobby said, shrugging, repeating it the way he'd learned it. "I mean, I won't lie, I took it seriously for a while there. Part of what...eventally, you know, me and Viv." He snapped an invisible stick in both hands.

"Yeah," Fawkes said. "But what about--"

"Less butting," Bobby said firmly, and bent to scoop Fawkes upright. It took longer this time, and Fawkes sagged heavily in his grip. "Come on, it's gonna be a good flat part here, no big deal."

It was slow, though, and as the tunnel continued, Fawkes started losing his footing more often. Bobby took almost all of Fawkes's weight with his shoulders and side, and when they hit a rocky patch right before the slab of dirt and grass at the end, he just turned and sort of folded Fawkes up into his arms for the last few yards. Darien Fawkes was a tall guy, and had those shoulders and that reach; he was no one people should be messing with. But Bobby had learned well that when he was hurt, especially when something was going wrong in the gland mechanics and he got scared, he could go really...soft? Not like a coward, just _soft_ , like all eighteen feet of him somehow crumpled in and curled up. Bobby had run into the Keep's lab with Fawkes cradled in his arms and clinging to his neck in a warm, breathing, panicking ball, and he hadn't remembered feeling the strain.

"All right," he said, arranging Fawkes on a soft, thick layer of dirt. "Almost home, partner."

Fawkes eyed the climb before them.

"Okay, yeah, maybe it's a little steep," Bobby said, as if Fawkes had started in on one of his things. "But there's light up there, and that thing you're smelling that's not the dirt up your nose is fresh air. It's the way out, so, one more time and then the Keep'll check you over and you can get a little nap, tell chicks you hurt your knee on a ski vacation in Switzerland or something."

"Chicks dig that," Fawkes said, his voice a ghost.

"Hell yeah they do."

"Let me have...just a minute, okay?"

Bobby checked the stupid phone, which still had no stupid bars and was probably made out of tin cans and string. The tracker had better news, if only that Gerdolend...er...dorfer's?...the bad guy's signal had evened out and was moving away at vehicular speed. One more climb, no more caves, that sounded like a deal.

In fact... 

"Eyes," he said to Fawkes, getting to his feet. "Keep yours open, and I'll be right back."

"From where," Fawkes said unenthusiastically.

"I'm just gonna climb up and out, and see if I can call Claire."

"What's she gonna do, teleport? I still have to get up there."

"Save a little time," Bobby said reassuringly, but Fawkes's face, turned up to his, looked drawn and startled.

"I can make it, Bobby, seriously."

"I'm comin' right b--"

"Five more minutes," Fawkes said. "I give _you_ five more minutes all the time."

"Like when," Bobby scoffed, settling slowly down next to him.

"Like whenever I give you a ride to work, or pick you up for a kung-fu movie spectacular, and you're not done making yourself beautiful."

"Yeah, some of us like to wear grownup clothes." He let Fawkes lean against him, like before. "Five minutes."

"You're a hard man, Bobby Hobbes."

Bobby relaxed. There was definitely more air here, for one thing. And in the extra sunlight coming down, he could see Fawkes's face better, and though it was definitely a contender for mud-mask-of-the-month, it wasn't as bad off as some of the really bad times before. Bobby did not miss the quicksilver madness or those red segments on Fawkes's tattoo, and the pain it put Fawkes in, lots of times pain inflicted under Bobby's own hands. 

"Oh, wait a sec," he said, his memory sparking. He turned abruptly. "Fawkes, remember when you were new at the Agency?"

Fawkes blinked at him, the dirt on his forehead creasing. "Do I ever."

"And you were still getting the hang of making other stuff invisible? I mean, stuff that wasn't you and your clothes, stuff in your hands."

"Yeah."

"Because..."

"Well, because I tended to freeze it," he said. "And that's nice for a beer glass, but maybe not so nice for everything else."

"But you don't freeze everything now, do you."

"Nah, it's a matter of kind of...folding back the quicksilver flow. Here." One of Fawkes's dirty hands disappeared in a silver shimmer, his empty sleeve floated up in the air, and Bobby felt a light touch on the side of his face. It was cool, but not cold. "Damper down," said Fawkes musically, "and...dialing up...", and the ghost of the hand on him felt colder, and colder, until it almost burned. Then the quicksilver burst off in a shower of splinters and Fawkes patted his jaw. "Nice, huh?"

Bobby took hold of his hand. "Try it again. And this time, why don't you try putting it right about here." He drew Fawkes's unresisting hand down to the injured knee.

"Ohhh," Fawkes said, and his hand disappeared again at once. He drew in a long breath and let it out. "Okay, that feels kind of nice."

"Back of the head, too," Bobby insisted, and soon Fawkes's other hand was behind his own head, the incredible invisible ice pack.

"See, this is why I bring you places," Fawkes said. 

Bobby shook his head. "I dunno why I didn't think of that earlier. I mean, all the times I imagined getting trapped with you someplace, you getting hurt, I never even remembered you're like a walking first aid kit."

Fawkes studied him, his lower lip caught softly between his teeth. "You imagine that? Like, a lot?" But his voice wasn't making fun. 

Bobby shrugged. "Emergency preparedness is half the battle."

"What's the other half?"

"Makin' sure they suffer the emergency, not you." Bobby shadowboxed the air a couple times.

"Bad ass." Fawkes's sleeves moved a little, and he sighed. "Hey, Bobby?"

"Yep."

"You had a shrink when you were spying around in East Germany."

Bobby casually crossed his arms. "Yep."

"In love with every one means you fell in love with him, too, right."

Well, crap.

He shot Fawkes a sideways look. "We talkin' about the same one?"

"Dr. Barry," Fawkes said. "The mole, the one who blew Jack Carelli's cover. That guy."

"So you heard us, huh. While I was kicking Carelli's ass." Bobby waited out the twinge he still felt every time he remembered Jack, his handsome face contorting, shouting _I am not! Your friend!_ Yeah, that was gonna take some serious processing.

"Well, yeah, I mean, he didn't shock me in the ears."

"Coulda stopped your heart, though." Bobby clenched his fists.

"I know. He didn't. The thing is, I just wanted to--" Fawkes shifted awkwardly, and his empty sleeves both moved in front of him. Quicksilver particles sparkled, scattered, and were gone, leaving a pair of long-fingered hands twisting around each other. "I've been trying to--"

"Look, Fawkes," Bobby said in hearty reassurance. "I told you. Some people are--"

"Prone to transference. He tell you that?"

Bobby hesitated. "Probably. I don't remember. Point is, it was like, who could help it. Sure, I fell for him, and maybe he reminded me of Dr. Rosen, which, who wouldn't'a fallen for that guy. But it's nothing, it's--it's _transference_ , Fawkes, it's like catching a cold. You can't do a lot about it, so you get a diagnosis and you get the hell over it, am I right?"

"No, Bobby," Fawkes said, looking at him earnestly. "I don't think you're right."

"You can't go around running off with all your shrinks, _Darien_ ," Bobby said. "I told you, it's a syndrome."

"It's not about your shrinks, though," Fawkes answered. "At least, that's not what I mean."

Bobby very much did not ask him what he meant. "Something I learned from my shrinks is that maybe I'm a guy who falls in love a little too much, okay? Maybe I had to learn that that isn't real. Just 'cause you fall for someone doesn't mean you ever gotta _act_ on it." He ended with a definitive nod and wiped his jacket sleeve across his forehead.

But Fawkes's gaze was still steady. His pupils were equal size, for sure. "Doesn't mean you _never_ act on it, either."

Bobby stared at him, at those big, intent eyes blazing darkly out of the dirt.

"Bobby, you just... It's okay. To love people."

"People." Bobby didn't think it was fair, to be backed into a corner by someone he had just been hauling around like an extra suit.

Fawkes took a breath. "Well," he said, in that innocent, thoughtful voice he had when he was planning something crazy, "I'm people."

So the thing is, the steady voice in Bobby's mind, the voice he had worked really hard for a really long time to put there, and to pay attention to? It was caught without anything to say for a second, and there was Fawkes, champion of crazy plans, and he wasn't pushing any further or making it a dead end, but keeping close, just giving Bobby a chance and letting him... 

Yeah, so, Bobby did. He was careful at first. He took Fawkes's face between his hands, feeling the fine bones and the coating of dust. But then he kissed him on the mouth, because it was okay, and finally he knew what it was like, letting that fire in his heart loose, not having to tell himself stories. That made him kiss Fawkes some more, and not even feel like, _What the hell are you doing, this is Fawkes_. He knew very well who it was, and he still took what he wanted.

And Fawkes didn't leave any room for guessing--he held Bobby's shoulders tight in his fists and muttered things like "Yeah, that's" and "Oh, I" and made noises in his throat without any words at all. With Darien Fawkes, you knew where you were at. 

Bobby closed his eyes, pushing his fingers through Fawkes's hair, gathering dirt under his nails. They rested their foreheads together and breathed, in a familiar, easy, close circle of partnership. He felt safe, and how often could he say that? He didn't feel like he had anything really to lose...and maybe that was because he knew he wasn't gonna lose. Not this time.

"Damn, Hobbesy," Fawkes said. "You make a guy wanna..."

"What," Bobby said, pulling back a bit, preening. Fawkes's face was flushed, his lips slightly open and smeared with dust.

"Climb a vertical tunnel with a bum knee, I guess." Fawkes smiled, that helpless one that showed off his white teeth.

"I do have that effect on people." Bobby got up, didn't even bother brushing the top layer of dirt from his pants, and offered his shoulder to Fawkes.

It was a really steep pitch, and the dirt and rock was uneven underfoot. They took a long slide back at one point, losing a good minute's worth of work.

"Aw, come _on_ ," Fawkes said loudly, flat on his face. "I mean, seriously."

"You all right?" Bobby scrambled upright and started detaching Fawkes from the slope.

"How do I _look_? Next to 'all right' in the dictionary, do you think there would possibly be--"

Bobby patted him absently, feeling a little smile wanting to show. And then finally, startlingly, Bobby's piece-of-junk phone started beeping with saved messages. Claire had called five times, Eberts once. One hangup, probably Eberts pretending he hadn't called twice. Bobby just skipped ahead to the last message.

"They're on their way," he said, impressed. "Eberts and Keep in a company car."

"Look out, Thelma and Louise," Fawkes said, wrapped around Bobby like a parasitic plant. They struggled upward. 

As soon as they poked their dirty faces aboveground, Claire was already there, actually running toward them. Eberts hovered, which he was of course really good at.

She gave Fawkes a checkover before letting Bobby fold him into the backseat and climb in beside.

"Bobby, there's nothing wrong with you a good dry-cleaner can't fix," she said, obviously pleased. "And Darien, you're not as bad as all that, but you could still use further observation overnight. What do you say, an extra pillow in the lab?"

"No way," Fawkes said, his uneven truce with the Keep's exam bed ringing out in his voice, even now without the counteragent shots to keep the loathing white-hot. He cleared his throat. "Bobby's taking me home. He'll take care of me, won't you, buddy." One dusty hand lifted into the air.

Bobby socked it with his own, the easy automatic rhythm: side, side, thump with the knuckles.

"Count on it."


End file.
